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Experience using a U-Haul truck when picking up your Coupe at FFR

Hi all,
Newbie here will theorically go get his Coupe in march 2019 at the factory.
These are the first of many, many questions I will ask in the next several months, you’ve been warned! Lol!
Anybody here has been through this?
What size truck did you rent?
How did you organize your boxes and chassis for the trip?
How did you get your chassis and body off the truck back home? Home made dolly down the ramp?
Thanks in advance.

I rented a 16’ truck and most of the boxes etc fit in the canopy over the cab and around the car.
My chassis sat on a dolly and I used two LVL structural beams that I needed for my basement remodel to drive it down in to the garage.

For the 33 HR I rented the UHaul pickup and their 12 foot trailer. All the boxes fit in the back of the pickup and the frame with body on it, panels fenders etc all fit in the trailer.
You can see a couple of pics on post #8 of my build thread https://thefactoryfiveforum.com/show...s-33-Rod-Build

I rented a 16’ truck and most of the boxes etc fit in the canopy over the cab and around the car.
My chassis sat on a dolly and I used two LVL structural beams that I needed for my basement remodel to drive it down in to the garage.

HTH

John

So you mean you made a dolly narrow enough to roll down the « slide » incorporated into the truck and that you had the chassis deposed on the dolly inside the truck by FFR liftruck at their premises?

Bring harbor freight Dollys and tape them to the frame when you load. Then unload is a roller affair. I rented a 23' because it's all they had, but you can get by with a short 16'-18' enclosed, dual axel trailer.

Does anybody knows the weight of the Gel Coat body?
I might need to build some kind of shelf to put it on in my garage and want to knows how easy it is to manipulate.
Can I expect something just a little bit more heavy than a MK4 like we had at the school?

Does anybody knows the weight of the Gel Coat body?
I might need to build some kind of shelf to put it on in my garage and want to knows how easy it is to manipulate.
Can I expect something just a little bit more heavy than a MK4 like we had at the school?

Yes, the two body pieces together are heavier than the Roadster. The overall car is bigger and longer. The cowl especially is thicker, has an inner shell on much of it, and there's no hood opening. The rear body half has the roof. Hard to say how much the difference is. Maybe together 50-75 pounds more than the Roadster? Somewhere in that range. They're both relatively rigid and stand by themselves without any added bracing or whatever. Both are a little clumsy to move with one person. Easy with two. Good luck with your pickup and build.

Not a Coupe, but a Cobra. by EdwardB's description, it's a different bear.

I used a 16' Penske to pick mine up. Took the body off, used the engine hoist to lift the frame and used landscape timbers in the bed of the truck to ease the sliding of the frame. Then but the body back on and surrounded with boxes.

BUT! Let me tell you a Little secret: When I did mine, Penske gave FREE UNLIMITED miles for ONE WAY trips.BUT DAVE! THIS ISN'T ONE WAY!! I know, but to Penske picking up from ONE store (east Savannah Home Depot) and dropping off at ANOTHER store (a different Home Depot on west side of Savannah) was considered a ONE WAY trip!! Their ad says to take the scenic route to your destination, so I did! I took 3 days to get across town. You'll feel like you stole the thing! I found this out while trying different scenarios on the Penske website. So try to get the rate online before leaving for the trip. When I turned in the truck after putting over a 1,000 miles on it to go "across town", the guy I turned it into looked at the mileage and laughed. He said, "okay, let's see what the computer says" and sure enough free unlimited miles for that ONE WAY trip.

I can't speak from authority on this but you might want to ask about crossing the boarder with the kit car. There may be some import, Customs, duty, and documentation things you will have to deal with as you cross the boarder. last thing you will want is to be there with a rented truck / trailer and have them stop you from coming in. Again, I have never moved a kit car across the boarder, but I have had work shipments of other things get stuck in customs going into foreign countries and be stuck there for a week. also remember now the state of MASS is getting its sales tax on pickups in Wareham. Your probably NOT going to get that refunded across the border. I know it sounds like fun doing a road trip pickup but I would take a hard look at the numbers for a Canada Road trip.

I can’t say for bringing it from the US to Canada, but I bought mine from Canada and brought it back to the US with no problem.
There’s a whole story behind it but I had to show my empty truck 3 times at border crossings, and when I had the kit in it at import they didn’t even ask to open the doors!!!
Go figure.

factory five told us what size truck to rent. FF loaded everything in the truck, and off we went. Once we got the truck home we slipped some dollies under the frame/body, rolled it out to the ramp, which we set up to be close to level ; I think we put a saw horse under one end of the ramp. Once clear of the truck box, four of us picked it up and dropped, I mean placed, it on the ground. Then we all took turns sitting in it.

When importing a kit to Canada you cannot import a full kit. If you go see on FFR website there is a « Canadian kit » version for the Coupe. You then need to complete it with parts from another source like Valin’s, which I did.
As for crossing the border with the partial kit, FFR prepares documents to be submitted to Transport Canada prior to pick up. TC issues some kind of authorization that is supposed to make it easy at the border.
What % of Mass sales tax am I facing when picking up my kit?

It may have changed from 2012 when I brought mine across but, I wouldn't bring the completion kit across at the same time. This might cause problems. The customs agent didn't care at all about the Transport Canada paperwork, all he wanted to see was the invoice. This was a little tricky because some parts (wheels etc) were drop shipped to my door. I paid GST on the whole invoice and got the paperwork showing this so I didn't have to pay when the shipped items arrived.

As far as customs was concerned, it was a bunch of car parts and they are duty exempt under the old free trade agreement.

I can't speak from authority on this but you might want to ask about crossing the boarder with the kit car. There may be some import, Customs, duty, and documentation things you will have to deal with as you cross the boarder. last thing you will want is to be there with a rented truck / trailer and have them stop you from coming in. Again, I have never moved a kit car across the boarder, but I have had work shipments of other things get stuck in customs going into foreign countries and be stuck there for a week. also remember now the state of MASS is getting its sales tax on pickups in Wareham. Your probably NOT going to get that refunded across the border. I know it sounds like fun doing a road trip pickup but I would take a hard look at the numbers for a Canada Road trip.

I contacted FFR about sales tax for my case. I am considered an international sale so I do not have to pay sales tax when picking up since I’m heading out to the border.

Depending on what your daily driver is, you can get away with a minivan and utility trailer from Canadian Tire. The loading at FFR is easy (fork lift). Once home, take the body off and four guys can easily manhandle the frame off the trailer into your garage. For crossing the boarder, have your import paperwork from Transport Canada just in case. When asked at the border, you have a load of "car parts". Don't offer any additional info unless asked. Depending on the length of your stay in the US, you are allowed to bring back $800 per person duty free. Subtract that from the value of the goods from FFR and that's what you'll pay duty on.

... For crossing the border, have your import paperwork from Transport Canada just in case. When asked at the border, you have a load of "car parts". Don't offer any additional info unless asked...

Yeah, when I crossed out here in BC they didn't care about the Transport Canada approval at all, never asked about it. They wanted to see the invoice - I had the inventory sheets too of course but that many pages with no dollar value listed wasn't of interest. I think they were just focused on getting their pound of flesh in taxes...

Another option is to take an early flight to Providence, RI, rent a 16' truck from an outfit just outside of the airport, drive to FFR (about 50 miles) for the pickup, and then the road trip home - you have the truck for 3 days. One-way fights to Providence are very reasonable ($65 each) from the Washington DC area and probably elsewhere, in fact, our taxi to the airport will cost more!

My son and I will be doing this on Saturday to pick up our 818C - doable in 1 day for us. Good idea Dave (DadOfThree) to use the shop crane to get the frame off - that will increase by 50% the number of times I will use that thing - thanks!

I'm wondering if a Mk4 would fit in a UHaul 6x12 utility trailer & all the boxes in a UHaul pickup? Not sure how I'd get the chassis out of a box truck at the unloading end without more manpower than I'm likely to have....

I'm wondering if a Mk4 would fit in a UHaul 6x12 utility trailer & all the boxes in a UHaul pickup? Not sure how I'd get the chassis out of a box truck at the unloading end without more manpower than I'm likely to have....

That's what I did with the 33. The body was on the chassis and there was 1" to spare on the length. Unfortunately, the gate at the rear of the trailer is not full width and we could not roll the chassis with body out the back. Had to lift it up and over....

Another option is to take an early flight to Providence, RI, rent a 16' truck from an outfit just outside of the airport, drive to FFR (about 50 miles) for the pickup, and then the road trip home - you have the truck for 3 days. One-way fights to Providence are very reasonable ($65 each) from the Washington DC area and probably elsewhere, in fact, our taxi to the airport will cost more!

My son and I will be doing this on Saturday to pick up our 818C - doable in 1 day for us. Good idea Dave (DadOfThree) to use the shop crane to get the frame off - that will increase by 50% the number of times I will use that thing - thanks!

Cheers

Dave

I might do something in that line of thoughts:
Driving down in my SUV down to Boston with wife, daughter and my Mott College buddy. Have dinner in downtown Bean Town and next morning go to U-Haul nearest FFR, get a 20 footer and get down to business.
That sounds like a lot of fun...

I might do something in that line of thoughts:
Driving down in my SUV down to Boston with wife, daughter and my Mott College buddy. Have dinner in downtown Bean Town and next morning go to U-Haul nearest FFR, get a 20 footer and get down to business.
That sounds like a lot of fun...

We picked up our kit from FFR this weekend. I don't have a trailer or vehicle to tow one so we went the rental truck route. It was a very long day, flying to Providence, renting the truck, driving to FFR and then 10 h home, but totally worth it. After another company let us down on Friday with not being able to find a truck in the area, we ended up with a 15' UHaul truck which was barely big enough for the car (818C) and the tremendous volume of boxes you get. The 20' would be a better option for most kits since the 818 is one of the smaller ones and it barely fit. If you use UHaul, their smart phone-based pick up and return system is easy to use and saves a bunch of time - create an account before you go.

Take or rent some moving blankets to avoid setting the frame on the truck floor and risking scratching your new toy. Also take ratcheting tie downs for the frame and we also put one across the "Grandma's Attic" above the cab to keep boxes up there.

The FFR guys were fabulous. They loaded the frame etc. and we were responsible for the tie-downs and positioning the boxes which they handed up to us which was fair enough from a liability perspective. Brent took us over what was back ordered and some tips about inventorying, I signed once, and that was it. You have 45 days to inventory and to let them know if anything is missing. If there is anything you need, they will FedEX it to you ASAP, likewise when the back-ordered parts from 3rd parties come in.

On this particular Saturday a car club was visiting the factory and there were about 100 people and their cars, plus one guy who flew in and out by helicopter! This meant the parking lot out back was totally full and we had to wait for some of them to clear out to get our truck back there. Plus, we had to wait for another builder who arrived before us to load up his GTM. We got away about 12:30 pm having arrived at 11 am. It was all good though and we were free to wander the factory and chat with the car club people, some who even took our photo standing by our kit. One bloke had a McLaren which my son oogled over (Bruce McLaren was a fellow Kiwi by the way). I was told this visit by the car club was unusual and that normally you can get loaded as soon as you arrive. They'll give you a guided tour if you get there fairly early (I was told 9:30 am).

The truck was pretty noisy inside at highway speeds so don't expect to have intimate conversations! I brought along a Bluetooth speaker so I could listen to podcasts (at near maximum volume) and my son had noise-cancelling headphones on much of the time.

All up it cost me about $800 - Truck $400, Gas $180, Airfares $130, Taxis $100 plus a full day. A savings over Stewart Transport for sure, and I got to see the Factory, meet the staff, and have a road trip with my son. You can keep the truck for up to 3 days so if you or your friends have things to move, now is the time. There's a 40 cents/mile overage fee for anything over 485 miles in my case - we did about 80 extra miles.

For the unloading, we took off all the panels etc., and used the shop crane attached at the back and 2 adults supporting the front to get the frame off the truck.

The biggest challenge once you get home is where to store everything until it is used on the build. Fortunately, I now have a room in the basement I can use after my wife kindly relocated her exercise equipment as she didn't like the idea of storing the body panels under the deck as I had planned - they are "too nice" for that!

Dave,
Wow! Great write up, thanks.
Do you think it would have been much easier if you had the opportunity to put a dolly under the frame and use the slide to get it out of the truck?
I'm asking since I could bring one over there and have the frame and body put on it at the factory.

Dave,
Wow! Great write up, thanks.
Do you think it would have been much easier if you had the opportunity to put a dolly under the frame and use the slide to get it out of the truck?
I'm asking since I could bring one over there and have the frame and body put on it at the factory.

Thanks! This is a place to share useful information - I have learned so much here.

In my case, no, I don't think a car dolly would have helped with the truck I had. The ramp on the 15' truck is only about 2' wide, like for a hand truck. You'd need to rig up some wider ramps once you got home. The method I used worked fine with my 12 year old son operating the crane from inside the garage, with my wife and myself on the front end. I didn't notice what the larger trucks had in terms of ramp widths but you could stop at a UHaul place and check them out - the ramps would get too heavy to handle if they got much wider, maybe the larger ones are motorized? I don't think a lift would work.